The NASA Mono Lake press release conference has heated up to a higher intensity. Here is follow up post this blogger contributed to The Daily Galaxy web site on December 13, 2010, that updates this blog's post of December 2, 2010.
Although I also feel NASA's Mono Lake research, per se, might be flawed in design, I believe NASA had a larger purpose for the press release conference: through suggestion and implication, I feel NASA has begun to prep the public to accept expanded definitions of life so to eventually introduce the public to their reality.
Also, the Mono Lake release seems to send some signals about NASA's internal positions on the "life problem" [at this time]. First, that DNA itself is robust, hence adaptive to many environments. Second, that NASA favors the DNA morphology as a venue of bioinformation. And third, that DNA is probably to be found throughout this solar system and perhaps beyond, although perhaps restricted to the "Goldilocks" zones of far systems (?).
Personally, I find it difficult to accept that DNA, in all its complexity, is a commonly occurring, and preferred, chemical structure found throughout the planets and solar systems. Why? Because it is hard to imagine that jiggling a planet-or-moon-sized boxful of many-ported Lego chemical blocks, mainly from the first 3 rows of the periodic table with some transition and higher elements thrown in, will generally produce the DNA morphology more often than many, many other possible chemical assemblages. (But, since I am not a computer which can easily generate and compare thermodynamic advantages of different complex morphologies, maybe DNA is a preferred structure! Who knows, maybe NASA?)
So, I feel NASA's implied emphasis on DNA is either naive or founded on specific evidence. But, as I don't feel NASA is naive, it is my expectation there will be more "releases" building up to hard evidence for extra-earth life based on DNA. The corollary to this evidence is that earth life is not spontaneous in origin but might equally have been seeded, since one could expect DNA to be also transported by passenger microbes on asteroids, meteorites, etc.. In this last respect, NASA seems to have been excited about the piggy-back transport scenario for a long time - just a thought.
Monday, December 13, 2010
Thursday, December 2, 2010
NASA's December 2, 2010, Web Conference on Astrobiology - Tantalizing, Wasn't It?
The December 2, 2010, NASA-TV streaming conference was for this blogger a kind of chilling experience in a Christmas morning sense ... but not for the science. I believe today's NASA panel, conducted in a familiar, entertaining, enthusiastic (and fetching) manner, was part of a public education seminar series that is designed to "prep" the general public for Disclosure -a Disclosure that "we" (NASA, global governments, leaders, military police at landing sites, ordinary citizens experiencing encounters, etc) have already experienced contact with ET and most probably that ET has been with us for a long time. This is a personal intuitive sense that the blogger does not equate to belief in, or declaring obeisance to, the popularized web and TV-based sensationalist (some say also "paranoid") voices. This blogger's personal belief is that ET is a real phenomenon and when publically "exposed" will very likely prove to be "mundane" (non-superpowered) in purpose, intelligence and general capabilities.
Scientifically, this blogger heard little news from what physical inorganic and organic chemists, and forward looking biologists and research physicians (and general forward-thinking citizens who are carpenters, plumbers, bookkeepers, etc) haven't already predicted or suspected for decades - the polling indicates that well over 50% of Americans believe in or accept the possibility of ET. Certainly, there have been many less mind-chained technologists, and lay persons, writing science fiction over the last century who have been visualizing life formsw based on non-water and non-phosphorous homologs. Michael Crichton's books are notable examples.
Almost 40 years ago, ths blogger personally developed and taught an advanced course in non-water based chemistry and electrochemistry, with biological implications and applications such as biosensors and replacement of carbon with other, homologous, elements. The most popular near-water model for HOMOLOGOUS chemical systems was even then believed to be based on Arsenic and its close neighbors in the periodic table (e.g., Germanium, Silicon, etc). The point being made is there are a host of elements just as likely as Arsenic to show up in exotic life systems.
So what else sent shivers thru this brain? It was the coincidence-that-is-non-coincidental timing of a clean and simple, public panel being held on this particular subject, exotic life chemistry, at this time of near-critical-mass-point of ufo sightings along with an increasing rate of "disclosures" by military guards, government officials, statesmen, nurses, and just ordinary citizens from all parts of the globe who are now telling, near the end of their time on this orb their stories about past and current ET encounters. These encounters number in the thousands - and even tens of thousands if one also includes alleged events in the abduction arena.(And notice how presentable, entertaining and down-to-earth the panelists conducted themselves while disclosing some striking implications.)
I expect there will be one or two more publically televised "education" events before the "good" news is let out that ET, our bio-chemical brothers, exist. Even the Vatican has moved to anticipate that eventuality with its announcement in 2008 that the good Patria feel it is "OK" for Catholics to believe in ET because they are our "brothers" though perhaps being different in their lack of original sin (a stateement with profound implications and whose exact meaning is still to be explained). But how our new family thinks, spiritualizes, behaves,now it's ethos is structured, etc. is another question. However, one imagines that if ET has revealed themselves, and we are still alive and the globe is not in ashes, then ET is not a threat from the perspective of our programmed, instinctive, naked-ape attack-or-flee reaction base. There might of course be bio-hazard dangers (and we have also heard in the more expansive (speculative?)ufo-ET network about quarantine sites for ET's in various areas of the US and elsewhere (Dulce, New Mexico, etc).
How ET might smell to us, how and what ET eats for energy (certainly not eating us, but think of ET as terrifically strong radishes, hmm), eliminates as waste (our earth's deep ocean, super hot thermal vents have led to the evolution/adaptation, of life to live on a sulfur-based biochemistry where thir waste products are allomorphs of pure sulfur), and what ET drinks are questions whose answers are delightfully up for grabs and yet to be answered. However, these points bring up articles in the speculative UFO web world that have presented alleged personal accounts of ET encounters and "weird" or unsettling smells and "awareness" that evince sometimes severe psychological stress - which are expected reactions from our human biology base.
For instance, Arsenic-based chemistry, though perhaps "operating" along similar (homologous) chemical paths as phosphate systems, most likely leads to metabolic wastes that incorporates Arsenic hydrides which tend to smell strongly of a garlic essence instead of the familiar rotten egg smell of human waste. Or think of Arseno-proteinaceous breakdown sludge instead of human-like coproplytes, or and think of really bad breath, perspiration, etc.
The ufo-ET web network has long reported first hand witness "accounts" (claims?) of the very terrifying effect of just the smell of ET - an immediate recognition by the human brain smell centers that the wafting odors don't fit into our 3-D stereo-configured smell receptacles which are evolved to accept and recognize not only differently shaped molecules but those within specific ranges of elecro-charge-density, etc. (Human sensing organs are very comprehensive and sensitive instrument arrays especially when combined with such our complex, "intuitive" central computing center, the human brain.)
The Nasa panel today, also very nicely explained, in an easily understood show and tell manner, that we humans are not biologically unique. Further, the NASA panelists implied that in the vast, chemically complex universe we should not be surpised to meet "life forms" (at least chemical-based life) that are sentient and perhaps more advanced than us: this technically trained blogger believes Life is a term that deserves deeper analyses than has been done at present and has broader meaning than our usually understood bio-organic definition ... and conceivably might occur as non-physical formats.
I believe, further, that NASA has more cards hidden in their hand but are waiting for the right near-time to show them ... now that the public, through the mainstream media (CNN, MSNBC, Fox, etc) is being educated to wider and higher expectations.
Scientifically, this blogger heard little news from what physical inorganic and organic chemists, and forward looking biologists and research physicians (and general forward-thinking citizens who are carpenters, plumbers, bookkeepers, etc) haven't already predicted or suspected for decades - the polling indicates that well over 50% of Americans believe in or accept the possibility of ET. Certainly, there have been many less mind-chained technologists, and lay persons, writing science fiction over the last century who have been visualizing life formsw based on non-water and non-phosphorous homologs. Michael Crichton's books are notable examples.
Almost 40 years ago, ths blogger personally developed and taught an advanced course in non-water based chemistry and electrochemistry, with biological implications and applications such as biosensors and replacement of carbon with other, homologous, elements. The most popular near-water model for HOMOLOGOUS chemical systems was even then believed to be based on Arsenic and its close neighbors in the periodic table (e.g., Germanium, Silicon, etc). The point being made is there are a host of elements just as likely as Arsenic to show up in exotic life systems.
So what else sent shivers thru this brain? It was the coincidence-that-is-non-coincidental timing of a clean and simple, public panel being held on this particular subject, exotic life chemistry, at this time of near-critical-mass-point of ufo sightings along with an increasing rate of "disclosures" by military guards, government officials, statesmen, nurses, and just ordinary citizens from all parts of the globe who are now telling, near the end of their time on this orb their stories about past and current ET encounters. These encounters number in the thousands - and even tens of thousands if one also includes alleged events in the abduction arena.(And notice how presentable, entertaining and down-to-earth the panelists conducted themselves while disclosing some striking implications.)
I expect there will be one or two more publically televised "education" events before the "good" news is let out that ET, our bio-chemical brothers, exist. Even the Vatican has moved to anticipate that eventuality with its announcement in 2008 that the good Patria feel it is "OK" for Catholics to believe in ET because they are our "brothers" though perhaps being different in their lack of original sin (a stateement with profound implications and whose exact meaning is still to be explained). But how our new family thinks, spiritualizes, behaves,now it's ethos is structured, etc. is another question. However, one imagines that if ET has revealed themselves, and we are still alive and the globe is not in ashes, then ET is not a threat from the perspective of our programmed, instinctive, naked-ape attack-or-flee reaction base. There might of course be bio-hazard dangers (and we have also heard in the more expansive (speculative?)ufo-ET network about quarantine sites for ET's in various areas of the US and elsewhere (Dulce, New Mexico, etc).
How ET might smell to us, how and what ET eats for energy (certainly not eating us, but think of ET as terrifically strong radishes, hmm), eliminates as waste (our earth's deep ocean, super hot thermal vents have led to the evolution/adaptation, of life to live on a sulfur-based biochemistry where thir waste products are allomorphs of pure sulfur), and what ET drinks are questions whose answers are delightfully up for grabs and yet to be answered. However, these points bring up articles in the speculative UFO web world that have presented alleged personal accounts of ET encounters and "weird" or unsettling smells and "awareness" that evince sometimes severe psychological stress - which are expected reactions from our human biology base.
For instance, Arsenic-based chemistry, though perhaps "operating" along similar (homologous) chemical paths as phosphate systems, most likely leads to metabolic wastes that incorporates Arsenic hydrides which tend to smell strongly of a garlic essence instead of the familiar rotten egg smell of human waste. Or think of Arseno-proteinaceous breakdown sludge instead of human-like coproplytes, or and think of really bad breath, perspiration, etc.
The ufo-ET web network has long reported first hand witness "accounts" (claims?) of the very terrifying effect of just the smell of ET - an immediate recognition by the human brain smell centers that the wafting odors don't fit into our 3-D stereo-configured smell receptacles which are evolved to accept and recognize not only differently shaped molecules but those within specific ranges of elecro-charge-density, etc. (Human sensing organs are very comprehensive and sensitive instrument arrays especially when combined with such our complex, "intuitive" central computing center, the human brain.)
The Nasa panel today, also very nicely explained, in an easily understood show and tell manner, that we humans are not biologically unique. Further, the NASA panelists implied that in the vast, chemically complex universe we should not be surpised to meet "life forms" (at least chemical-based life) that are sentient and perhaps more advanced than us: this technically trained blogger believes Life is a term that deserves deeper analyses than has been done at present and has broader meaning than our usually understood bio-organic definition ... and conceivably might occur as non-physical formats.
I believe, further, that NASA has more cards hidden in their hand but are waiting for the right near-time to show them ... now that the public, through the mainstream media (CNN, MSNBC, Fox, etc) is being educated to wider and higher expectations.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
